To reiterate

The headline here should be that the Texas Rangers won the American League. Advancing to the World Series is a happy reward for that, but first and foremost: they won the damn league. But no. ESPN, Yahoo Sports, everyone leads with "Rangers advance to first World Series."

First things first, people.

Here's a simple test. Cast your mind back to 1951, when Bobby Thomson broke so many Brooklyn hearts with that home run. And if you listen to the radio, imagine that you hear Russ Hodges' epic call of the event, 2010 style:

The Giants advance to the World Series! The Giants advance to the World Series! The Giants advance to the World Series!

Nuff said.

RIP Bobby Thomson

The author of the most heartbreaking moment in Brooklyn Dodger history died yesterday, aged 86. I'll never learn to love that moment, but the Staten Island Scot has a special place in my memory.

When I was relatively new to the USA, ten years ago, I saw Bobby Thomson and his partner in history, Ralph Branca, at a trade show. They were attracting folks to a research agency's booth by signing photos of the Shot Heard Round the World, so being a good baseball fan I duly lined up. Someone in front of me was explaining to his colleague that the famous home run had won the World Series at Yankee Stadium. I took a moment to correct both errors.

When I got to the front of the line, as they were signing the picture, I mentioned that although the home run happened some years before I was born, it still broke my heart to think of it. Thomson looked up at me quizzically and said, "With an accent like that, what do you care?"

He had a fair point. But I did care, and I do care. And that home run still breaks my heart.

The evil of banality

Manny and Big Papi have joined the 2003 Leaked Names List, finally putting an official aura of anabolic steroids around 2004's Fellowship of the Bloody Sock. All of which ticks off Curt Schilling, but not nearly as much as the mealy mouthed excuses and half denials:

Female estrogen? I didn’t know what I was taking? I had no idea it was steroids? Do you honestly for one second think ANY player, ANY professional athlete who has been caught up in this allowed a cream to be rubbed, a needle to be stuck, or a pill to be taken and wasn’t aware that the substance was or was not a steroid?

Fans of Barry Bonds, the King of Control Freaks, take note.

Manny, of course, has already joined the Hall of Denial this year in L.A. And Ortiz always looked suspicious to me. The boost in numbers from his Twins career to his Red Sox career seemed a lot better than just a switch to Fenway Park would suggest. Here's his OPS+, which is park adjusted, as a Twin and a Red Sok:

Year  Age   G       OPS+
1997  21   15  MIN  107
1998  22   86  MIN  111
1999  23   10  MIN  -43
2000  24  130  MIN  101
2001  25   89  MIN  106
2002  26  125  MIN  120
2003  27  128  BOS  144
2004  28  150  BOS  145
2005  29  159  BOS  158
2006  30  151  BOS  161
2007  31  149  BOS  171
2008  32  109  BOS  123
2009  33   93  BOS   82

See a bright line there from 2003 to 2007? It's hard to spot, but try.

Here's Joe Torre's reaction, by the way:

I don’t think fans need to get chapter and verse on each individual and why and how much and when. We need to get their trust. I don’t think they need that information. I think they just need to know we’re doing everything we can to get this game back to where we want to have it.

That's so much garbage. Torre must think the guys at retrosheet spent the 1980s saying, "I'm not sure precisely how many hits Ty Cobb had in his career, but that's cool. I can let it be."

Chapter and verse is exactly what a large proportion of baseball fans need. We need to know exactly what happened, every season, every game, every play, every pitch, every trade, every minor change in uniform logo, every drug test, everything.

Screw your self-serving and idiotic confidentiality agreements. Tell us. Tell us everything.

Lost history, recovered

Here is the first photograph I have ever seen which clearly shows Wallace's Ridgewood Park, a little known ballfield barely over the border in Queens. The park was, for a few years in the 1880s, used by the Dodgers as a venue for Sunday matches to dodge Brooklyn's blue laws. In 1905 the local Ridgewood Club took on and defeated the World Series champion Giants here, 5 to 2.

If the version in the photo hardly looks major league, there is a reason. The stands burned to the ground in 1917, and were replaced only after William Wallace tried to sell the land and failed. By then, his main tenants, the semipro Brooklyn Bushwicks, had moved to Dexter Park. Wallace's Grounds were never the same after that, and are seen here in 1922.

I found this photo yesterday at the New York Public Library site, amongst many photographs of ordinary city streets taken by the historian Eugene Armbruster in the 1920s. I am grateful beyond words for his wonderful work.

New deal could lock Bonds up for the rest of his career

Barry Bonds has been indicted on four counts of perjury, and one of obstruction of justice.

But, hey, he's never failed a drug test which had his name on. Keep clinging to that, Giants fans. Self delusion can get you anywhere. But even that's not true any more. According to the indictment: During the criminal investigation, evidence was obtained including positive tests for the presence of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing substances for Bonds and other professional athletes.

Baseball day in New York

Monday's visit to Ebbets Field, it turns out, was merely a curtain raiser.

Today, on the 50th anniversary of the final games of the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants, famed ballpark afficionado Ken "Trolley Car" Schlapp and I took to the streets of the city. Our focus was on professional baseball, but a few extra parks lay in our path, too.

We began at Lou Gehrig's birthplace, on E 94th Street, and went from there to: the original Polo Grounds; the more famous Polo Grounds; Hilltop Park; the Long Island Grounds; the Queens County Grounds (aka Feldman's Atlantic Park); Suydam Oval; Meyerrose Park; Grauer's Ridgewood Park; Wallace's Ridgewood Grounds; the Union Grounds; the Capitoline Grounds; Eastern Park; Ebbets Field; the Parade Ground; Keyspan Park; the original Washington Park; and the later Washington Park.

I make that 17 distinct ballparks. Oh, and we took pictures of Yankee Stadium from the Polo Grounds site, too. You can see lots of photos here.

Meantime, as we journeyed around three boroughs, strange events were unfolding at Shea Stadium...

Every time we heard the radio, John Maine had a bigger lead to work with, and was a little further into a potential no-hitter. After a bench clearing brawl, we heard about "the incident at third base" as if it was a UFO sighting in Nevada. Each Mets run was celebrated as if it was a World Series win. Suddenly the Great Collapse of 2007 had turned into the Mighty Recovery of 2007. When it was all over, Maine had struck out 14, given up just one measly infield hit after getting 23 outs, and the bullpen had helped him to a 13-0 romp over the Marlins.

By now, The Phillies have duly lost, and the NL East is again dead level with a game to go. Fun? This race couldn't be better if it was being contested by ninja monkeys and pirate pandas.

History remembered, and history made. Today was a day for baseball.